Drinking water and class on the Delta

 Restore the Delta, a community advocacy group that has fought the state water plan, estimated that there are around 40,000 people in the Delta that could be classified as environmental justice communities. Environmental justice laws require the equal treatment of all people with respect to environmental issues, such as access to clean water.
Specifically, the cities of Antioch and Stockton have larger environmental justice populations that would experience significant difficulty were water pollution levels or water rates to increase.

 

 

 

 

 

 

5-1-17
East Bay Times
Antioch Demands Equal Access To Clean, Affordable Water
Aaron Davis
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/05/01/antioch-demands-equal-access-to-c...
ANTIOCH — With discussions having ceased, the city has filed a claim with the state to be “made whole” from the increased impact on the city’s water supply from the state’s WaterFix project.
The claim argues that the Contra Costa Water District’s deal struck last year with the state Department of Water Resources is “substantially more favorable” than the city’s agreement with the state.
The county water district gave up a pending protest over the WaterFix project in exchange for upstream fresh water from the Sacramento River.
“The bottom line is we want to be made whole,” City Manager Ron Bernal said. “We have one of the most superior water rights in the state. We’ve been taking water since 1850 and that source of water is hard to come by these days.”
Antioch has rights dating back to before 1914 to pump without the need for a state permit. A 1968 agreement with the state required the state to pay for one-third of Antioch’s costs to purchase water when its normal supply is not usable due to increased salinity levels.
Also included in that agreement is a “me-too” clause, which requires the state to offer the same terms to Antioch that it offers to other water users in the region. With the county water district’s agreement pulling fresh water from farther up the Sacramento River, the city feels that this new deal will also impact the supply of fresh water.
“By virtue of (the state) entering into an agreement with CCWD and not even discussing things with us, we believe that we’re being ignored,” Bernal said. “At the end of the day, we want to be able to assure our ratepayers that the impacts of an upstream project have been mitigated. The proponents (of that project) have an obligation to mitigate and we don’t believe that’s been done.”
With the WaterFix pumping more and more water from the region to the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California, many areas around the Delta will be feeling the pressure to increase water rates to pay for an increasing need for treatment.
Restore the Delta, a community advocacy group that has fought the state water plan, estimated that there are around 40,000 people in the Delta that could be classified as environmental justice communities. Environmental justice laws require the equal treatment of all people with respect to environmental issues, such as access to clean water.
Specifically, the cities of Antioch and Stockton have larger environmental justice populations that would experience significant difficulty were water pollution levels or water rates to increase.
“What the state is proposing for Antioch and Stockton is to take away the good fresh water from the Sacramento River and leave both cities with degraded San Joaquin water, which is one of the most polluted waters in the United States,” said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, the executive director of Restore the Delta.
In 2016, the San Joaquin River placed second among the country’s most endangered rivers, according to American Rivers, a national advocacy group. In 2014, the San Joaquin and its principal tributaries — the Merced, the Tuolumne and the Stanislaus Rivers — placed first.
Barrigan-Parilla said that the state had never surveyed populations around the Delta to determine the population of the environmental justice community and never considered the impact on marginalized communities.
“Frankly, the CCWD provides water to more affluent communities, a more up-and-up tech community and predominantly white community,” Barrigan-Parilla said. “It’s very similar to Flint, Michigan… here, you are left with a degraded source of water, you will need more for treatment costs and you will have a lot of poor people that won’t be able to afford to pay more and more for water.”
CCWD provides water to the communities of Clayton, Clyde, Concord, Pacheco, Port Costa and parts of Pleasant Hill, Martinez and Walnut Creek.
The Department of Water Resources would not comment, citing pending litigation.